With this blog I will focus on intentional thoughtful small tasks that you can do to improve your individual performance. “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” – Aristotle

Saturday, February 18, 2017

“Never give in, never give in, never, never, never,
never – in nothing, great or small, large or petty – never give in except to
convictions of honor and good sense.”

-Winston
Churchill, October 29, 1941

Warning
– this posting will be longer than my usual musings.

At
many dark times in my life I have referred to the above quote by Churchill to
bring me through ‘sterner days’. There are many and shorter variations of
Churchill’s famous quote about never giving up. I wanted to find the original Churchill
quote and discovered that this familiar quote was not 29 words long, but rather
contained in a speech.

The
famous quote was neither at the beginning nor the end, but hidden away in a
long paragraph recounting Great Britain’s progress during the first 10 months
of World War II. Churchill delivered this speech, which contained the sentence
about never giving in, at his old school, Harrow Hall (where as a boy he almost
flunked out). The famous words are contained in the following paragraph of the
speech:

You
cannot tell from appearances how things will go. Sometimes imagination makes
things out far worse than they are; yet without imagination not much can be
done.

Those
people who are imaginative see many more dangers than perhaps exist; certainly
many more than will happen; but then they must also pray to be given that extra
courage to carry this far-reaching imagination.

But
for everyone, surely, what we have gone through in this period—I am addressing
myself to the School—surely from this period of ten months this is the lesson:never give in,
never give in, never, never, never, never-in nothing, great or small, large or
petty—never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense.Never yield to force; never yield to
the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.

We
stood all alone a year ago, and to many countries it seemed that our account
was closed, we were finished. All this tradition of ours, our School history,
our songs, this part of the history of this country, were gone and finished and
liquidated.

I live in
New Zealand now but in May 2017 I will travel with my wife to New York City and
attend Fordham University’s commencement ceremony in the Bronx and received my
undergraduate degree in Organizational Leadership. Earning this degree has been
a very long journey for me – 36 years to be exact.

In September
1981, I began my college studies at New York University as an 18-year-old
freshman majoring in Finance. I was supposed to graduate in June 1985 but that
didn’t happen. I had a great time in college – a little too much of a great
time! In 1984 I was barely passing my classes.

During my studies
at NYU I started playing on the school’s basketball team during my freshman
year and was named captain in my first year with the team. I then became
co-captain in my junior year. But at the start of my senior year and would be
fourth year with the team I quit to focus on my classes in the hope of
graduating on time. At that time in my life, quitting the team and saying
goodbye to some of the guys I knew since freshman year was the hardest thing to
do. I love those guys that I played with to this day. I felt devastated that I
was letting them down. They all said they understood my decision but I could
see it in their eyes and on their faces they were surprised I left the team at
the beginning of my senior year.

At first
quitting the team made sense. I felt at the time it was the responsible
decision to make because I was not going to be a professional basketball
player. I was tall, 6’6”, but not nearly good enough to get drafted for the
NBA. But I came to realize that it was not being on the team that held me back
from studying harder but my lack of commitment and discipline to “hit the
books”. At that time, I didn’t know it but the guys on the team was the support
system I could have utilized to help me with my studies. I was too embarrassed
to tell the guys I was almost flunking out of college at the beginning of my
senior year.

After
leaving the team I floundered even worse with my studies. I moved from living
on campus to moving back home with my mother, commuted to NYU for classes and
started working a full-time job that was initially part-time. After taking a
few classes after 1985 while I was working I decided to stop pursing my
undergraduate degree in 1988.

In late 1989
and early 1990 I was disappointed in the direction my life. I had several low
paying jobs between 1985 and 1990. I felt that I was not using my full
capabilities of what I could do and then I started to think of joining the
military. I said the military, “Why not?”. The military could pay for me to go
back and finish my degree. I researched what branch of the service I wanted to
join and in August 1990 I enlisted in the U.S. Air Force.

I completed my six weeks of basic training at
Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas at the age of 27. Then four
months of training at Kessler AFB in Biloxi, Mississippi in my Air Force career
field, Communications-Computers Systems Planning and Implementation Apprentice.

A medal from the Air Force

From 1990 to 1997, I was a Project Manager for
Communications and Computer Systems in the United States Air Force. I was stationed in at Kirtland Air Force Base
in Albuquerque, New Mexico. While at Kirtland AFB, I was selected
542nd Crew Training Wing Outstanding First Termer of the Year for 1992.
During
the last two years of my enlistment in
the Air I was stationed at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Fairborn,
Ohio. During this assignment I was selected
to serve on a Source Selection Technical Panel for the Office of the Assistant
Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs. The panel was convened for the
procurement of computer systems valued at $55 million.

Accepting Outstanding First Termer of the Year

During my
years in the military I wanted to prove to myself that I was capable of doing
it all; performing outstanding at my military job, going to school,
volunteering for additional duties at work and in the community. And to a certain
point I did succeed and was recognized during my military career.

Outwardly I
had the appearance of success but inwardly I was trying to fill the ‘hole’ of
quitting the basketball and not graduating from NYU. While in the military I
took college courses at Southern Illinois University and Wilberforce University but never put it all together to complete my undergraduate degree. I didn’t
know this until many years later but deep down in my subconscious mind I did not
feel worthy of success. I said to myself that my ultimate goal was to complete
college but keep making excuses and sabotaging myself.

In December 1997 my enlistment in the
military was completed and I didn’t want to re-enlist for another term. After my enlistment, I moved back to NYC and has worked as
Adjunct Computer Instructor and Program Operations Specialist at LaGuardia
Community College School of Adult

and Continuing Education from 1998 to
2000. I left that job because of the
self-imposed pressure I put on myself.

After terrorist attacks on NYC at the World Trade
Center in 2001 I got a job as an administrative specialist for an architectural
& engineering (A&E) firm that was contracted by the U.S. government’s Federal
Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to provide financial assistance to public
applicants. While working at the firm I also collected one of the firms largest
overdue accounts receivable. Through effective
negotiation and organizational skills, I was able to collected 100% of the receivable
outstanding in the amount of $1.7 million. I was promoted to Accounting Manager of the NYC office of
the firm and was making a good salary but still felt empty because I didn’t
have my college degree. I still wanted to complete my degree but was afraid of
failing once again and not completing it.

While working as a Accounting Manger I was not
taking care of myself. I worked 12 to 15 hours a day and came in on Saturdays
and sometimes even on Sunday to prove to myself that I was worty of the position. I “burned out”and I quit the job at the age of 43.

I quit to get rest and reevaluate my life. Instead
of reevaluating my life and how I was living, I became depressed. I would not
reach out to my family or friends for support and isolated myself. I started to
gain weight and ballooned to over 300 lbs and was feeling sorry for myself. I
needed help but would not ask for it. My family, through much persistence, said
that as a veteran I should go to the Veteran Affairs Medical Center in
Manhattan and seek assistance. With the insistence of my family I went to the
VA Medical Center in 2007 to ask for help.

I was stubborn and thought I could get myself
back together on my own but I was wrong. Again through the persistence and
intervention by my family I went back to the VA in 2011 ready to turn my life
around. I accepted every assistance the VA offered. I had to climb out of the
hole I was in. I lost my apartment, no job and had almost no money in my bank
account. I had to humble myself and start over at the age of 48.

I was at the VA almost everyday. Woody Allen has
a famous quote “80% of success is showing up”, and apparently the other 20% is
completing what you started. I showed up and took advantage of everything the
VA offered. The VA has a program called Compensated Work Therapy (CWT) that
helps veterans gain the confidence and routine of going back to work. My work was
not glamours. I was a housekeeper at the VA Medical Center. I mopped, cleaned
bathrooms and hospital room, vacuumed, picked up garbage, and washed walls. I
did everything I was asked to do without complaining. As I was doing that work
I remembered the following quote from Dr. Martin Luther King:

If a
man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a
Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry.
He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will
pause to say, “Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.”

No
work is insignificant. All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and
importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.

I continued to show up and one day I was lucky. One definition of luck is “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity”.
A VA social worker saw the work I was doing with the CWT program and
recommended me for the opportunity to interview for a full-time VA job. I interviewed for
the position of Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment Specialist in the
Homeless Veterans Supported Employment Program. I was hired for the job. I kept
getting lucky. I loved the job of helping
veterans and providing them
individual vocational assessment, and job development to help them find
employment.

After a couple of
years as a VA Employment Specialist I interviewed for another position at the
VA as a Transition Advocate. I was hired and began assisting transitioning
Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and Operation
New Dawn (OND) veterans and their families regarding, eligibility for VA
benefits. I felt enormously grateful for what I was doing and how far I had
come by not giving up on myself. I did not do it alone. My family and support
system “jumped started” me and I had to do the 20% of completing what I
started. Maybe I had the “grit” within me all the time but it was covered by a
lot of insecurity, negative thinking and past failures. I remembered all my
failures but never my success.

While working at the VA in 2013, I enrolled at Fordham University as a part-time student at night to finish my degree. I was ready this time, determined and
most importantly equipped with confidence in myself. I had some challenges
along the way going back to school, probably like most adult learners but I
kept at it.

In 2014, I met a wonderful beautiful woman from New Zealand and fell
heads-over-heels in love. I left my job at the VA and moved from NYC and landed
in New Zealand on July 4, 2015 to spend the rest of my life with her. We got married in June 2016 and I could not
be happier.

While I was adjusting to life in New Zealand I continued studying online at Fordham completing my final nine courses for my degree in Organizational Leadership. I now work as a Program Facilitator at the New Zealand Department of Corrections.

I wanted to tell you this story to encourage you to keep preserving and doing the small tasks and strategies as stated in previous blogs everyday and to, "Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never - in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense."

Sunday, February 12, 2017

New Zealand is home to more than half of the world's
whale species, with
42 species and two subspecies in its waters. Also nearly half of the
world's dolphins and porpoises live off the coastline.

In the first week of February of this year, 416 pilot whales had beached themselves overnight at Farewell
Spit in Golden Bay at the top of the South Island in New Zealand, with more
than 70% dying by the time dawn broke on Friday. Golden Bay is conducive to strandings because of its shallow bay, which made it difficult for whales to swim out once they have entered.

The reasons for whales strandings are still unclear, but it
is thought a combination of factors contribute, with old, sick and injured
whales being particularly vulnerable. Whales, dolphins and porpoises rely on sound for navigation, foraging,
and communication, so military sonar and other human-made sounds can cause
whales to beach. Getting trapped in fishing gear or colliding with ships can also
injure and disorient whales, extreme weather and getting trapped in low
tides can also force them inshore.

But unlike humans, whales have to think about each breath they take. When they are sick or injured they come to shore where they can rest without having to fight to stay at the water's surface. Social species, like pilot whales, work together. They often call out to one another in distress and more come to help, also getting themselves into trouble.

What can we takeaway from this tragedy that we can apply to our own life? Human beings are also social creatures. Most of us like to be around the company of our family, friends, and work colleagues for companionship and emotional support. We have cultivated a support system around us to encourage us, help us when necessary and to tell the truth to us even when we don't want to here it.

You cannot truly support others if you are barely keeping
yourself just above water. So remember to take time to care and rejuvenate yourself
and be kind to yourself.

Saturday, February 11, 2017

I have to admit that I was a people pleaser for a very long time
in my career. I would say yes to just about anything because I thought that was
one of the ways to succeed in the workplace. I was all over the place and
others priorities become my priorities to the determent of my physical and
mental health.

Setting boundaries—is one of the most
important skills to master for both personal and professional growth. When you
say no to the things that don’t help you, you are, in effect, saying yes to the
things that will.

For some of us, saying no is very
difficult. I wanted to be like, the go to person, be seen as a team player, I
didn’t want to hurt feelings by closing a door or saying no to an opportunity. For
some reason I felt guilty if I didn’t say yes or maybe I wanted to prove to
myself that I could do it all. I found out the hard way that I could not do it
all!

Saying yes to too many things can be
overwhelming and against your own self-interest. By saying yes to too many
things, we may be saying no to some very important things. If your plate is too
full, there’s no room for the unexpected or ideal opportunity.

The
thing about saying yes and getting tasks done – without caring for yourself and
your needs – is that more people ask you to do stuff, and it is kind of flattering. You want to be nice but all of a sudden, you
realize that 80 percent of your good time is taken up by stuff that is not so
good.

Your
happiness and peace of mind will be made up of the choices that youmake.
If you’re not sure about something, say no to it. If you’re hesitant because
you know deep inside your heart that you’re not too thrilled about the idea,
say no.

When I was in the U.S. Air Force stationed at Kirtland Air Force Base
in Albuquerque during the early 1990s, I had an excellent leader and his name
was Joseph Trujillo.

The Communications Squadron commander appointed Mr. Trujillo as
the project manager for a large telecommunications installation project. The
project’s mission was to transition the military base from an analog telephone
switching system to a state-of-art digital telephone switching system. Joe had
five core members of his team and many others providing support when needed.

Joe formerly worked at AT&T for many years as a manager before
the breakup of the Bell Telephone System was
mandated in 1982. Joe accepted the early retirement offered from AT&T and
continued working, becoming a civilian employee of the USAF.

Joe created the culture for the team, developed team
members and fostered productivity by:

·Modeling Behavior - Joe
created an atmosphere of working hard and being professional but also wanted
the team to be loose and have fun doing such an important project. Joe was the
first one in the office and would have the coffee ready. He modeled the
behavior he wanted us to exhibit with internal and external stakeholders, customers
and, engineers, senior leaders and work crews. Joe rarely showed the pressure
he was under to have a flawless cut-over of the telephone switching system and
his demeanor was followed by the entire project team.

·Being Present and Visible– Joe did
not separate himself from the team. In the beginning stages of the team Joe
commandeered a large open office space. Each team member was provided a desk
and Joe’s desk was not larger than anyone else’s desk. There were no partitions
and we were encouraged to communicate directly with him and others on the team.
Joe made us all feel that our individual contribution was important to the
overall success of the project.

·Allowing New Approaches
– Joe allowed me to come up with a unique way to dispose of the old telephone
switching system. The usual process of disposing of old communications
equipment was to just send it to the military base scrap yard. I suggested to
Joe another alternative. I suggested that that we sell the switching equipment
instead of just throwing it away. I figured that some organization would be
able to cannibalize old parts for possible replacements parts. Joe was on-board
with the idea straight away but it took me time to convince others of the idea.
Joe delegated the entire process to me and I in coordinated the selling of the
old switch. We were able earn U.S. taxpayers $34,000 from selling the old
switch. I’m very proud of that accomplishment and all because Joe was willing
to listen and take a different approach because of suggestions from one of his
team members.

The new telephone switching system was installed on time, resources
were wisely managed and the cut-over was seamless. It has been 20 years since I separated
from them military in 1997 but I will always remember Joe – he was the best
manager I ever had and an excellent leader.

Before I
discuss why a Plan B may not be a good idea for achieving your goals let’s
review what Plan A is. The Cambridge Dictionary defines Plan A as, “an action
or set of actions for doing or achieving something that is preferred to other
methods”. Shin and Milkman determined that once you begin thinking about a fall
back plan, your desire to achieve your goal decreases. When I heard about this
research conclusion, I say, “What?”. I learned from my mother and I always
thought that I should always have a back-up plan – just in case!

The researchers
found that those who were encouraged to develop a Plan B were less likely to
achieve their goal than those who did not receive these instructions. The Plan
B participants were not only less successful accomplishing their goals, their interest
in reaching their original goal decreased.

Sun Tzu was
a Chinese general (born 544 BCE). He was excellent military strategist, and philosopher
who lived in ancient China. The book, The Art of War, is traditionally credited
to Sun Tzu and acknowledged as a work of genius on strategy. The book describes
a philosophy of war, managing conflicts, and winning battles. Many quotes in
the book have famous, one of these quotes is the
following,

“When your army has crossed the border, you should
burn your boats and bridges, in order to make it clear to everybody that you
have no hankering after home”.

A long time
ago Tzu crystallized what the researchers found – not having a Plan B focuses
the mind and body on one thing – your ultimate goal. With Tzu there was no
going back home.

This
research made me stop and rethink that it could be to our advantage not to have
a Plan B. If you proceed with a goal with an escape plan or doubting that you
can achieve your goal, you’ve already begun to sabotage the outcome. Believe it
or not on the unconscious level your self-talk is giving you permission to
fail.

Remind
yourself that you can succeed and if don’t have the tools and skills necessary –
go get those tools. Don’t build a space in your mind for self-sabotaging
beliefs.

I have always been interested how different individuals communicate to be more effective in their career. I
moved from NYC to New Zealand in July 2015 and one of the big difference I
noticed here from the United States is that midwives deliver babies instead of
doctors.

I interviewed Jo Toma, midwife and
Lead Maternity Carer (LMC) practicing in two towns, Taupo and Turangi, located in
the central North Island of New Zealand. Ms. Toma has been practicing midwifery
since 2006 and in November 2015 delivered her 500th child in the
world and she always says to expecting mothers when they are about to deliver,
“Are you ready to meet your baby?”

On April 24, 2016, Toma was
featured on a Māori community affairs television show, The Hui, on Channel 3 in New Zealand,
for her caring work with pregnant Māori women and their families. Māori are indigenous Polynesian people of New
Zealand and make up roughly 15% of the nation’s 4.5 million population.

I believe Toma is an outstanding
communicator in her practice with clients, medical professional colleagues,
social workers, court and law enforcement officials, and governmental agencies
because she listens respectfully, respect views other than her own, and is very
clear, unambiguous and straight forward in her professional communications. But
she also has the ability to look for common ground that can be built upon. I
would say she utilizes a communications style that anticipates and prevents
problems by clarifying situations to the benefit of all individuals involved in
her profession.

Midwifery in New Zealand regained its status
as an autonomous profession in 1990. The Nurses Amendment Act of that year
restored the professional and legal separation of midwifery from nursing, and
established midwifery, and nursing in New Zealand as separate and distinct
professions. Midwives work in many ways to provide maternity services to women
and their whanau (a Māori word for
family).

I interviewed Toma and asked her a few
questions about her professional communication style, her communications with clients,
and communications with professional colleagues.

Below are some of the questions asked, and
summaries of her responses.

Q: Have you taken any communications courses. If yes, how have you
applied what you have learned to assist you in communicating more effectively.

Jo: I have taken a 1-day course which is
called, SBARR. SBARR is an acronym for Situation
(What is happening?), Background
(What is the relevant clinical history?), Assessment
(What do I think the problem is?), Recommendation
(What would I do to correct the problem?), and Response (Is the response appropriate? What will I do?). This
communications tool is designed to give all medical information concisely and
quickly. So we use it in acute situations to quickly communicate critical care
information. It has improved my communications when you need a formal way of
communicating with medical staff.

Q: How do you like to be communicated with professionally?

Jo:
Clear and concise for all communications, written and verbal. No waffling or
going over and over points again and again. I want clear and concise
information, quickly with minimum chatter in a business/clinical sense. I hate
waffling.

Q: How has your communications style change (if it has) over your
career?

Jo: Absolutely! More concise now. I gave
the facts that are needed as opposed to my opinion. I cut out the waffle
because I know how I appreciate clear and concise communications.

Aaron: What happens if the communications are
not direct, what do you do?

Jo: I redirect. I stop them and ask
questions. What’s the situation, what’s the background, what’s the assessment,
what’s the response, and so give it to me in that format. All professional staff
talk in the SBARR format. That’s the gold standard in communicating in
medicine.

Q: What was the best advice you received about communicating with
others in a business environment?

Jo: Communicating your business and
clinical duties is not a friendly chat. It’s getting information across and
receiving information. It’s different that chatting with your friends. One line
that I draw is about transferring of information. I want it really clear and
really concise. I want one word answers/two word answers. Yes, no, I did it
here.

Aaron: Are there times when you need to be
social or just warm-up to a professional colleague you just met?

Jo: The first time we spend together,
lots of background information on both of us, lots of sharing of stories. We
talk about that in our medical environment – ‘the sharing of stories’ versus ‘the
gathering of information’. We share stories for the human to human friendly
side then we go into the business side - concise communications.

Q: Do you use humor as a communications strategy?

Jo: With my clients, absolutely – with
my colleagues never.

Aaron: Why with your clients?

Jo: Because I work with a lot of teenage
girls who are lower socioeconomic status and I don’t want to not have the
barrier of being professional with these women. Working with clients is about
working with them on a personal level. You are still trying to gain information
but they often don’t have very effective communications skills and so you are
trying to tease it out in a caring or humorous way or a motherly role for some
of the young girls. Trying to get the pertinent points out of their story. I
always, always paraphrase the girls because I need to know that I’ve understood
exactly what they have said. I paraphrase with humor or empathy to make sure
that I have understood and to make the women feel comfortable. You have to work
with what every communication style they are using...a lot of what you learn
about a woman having a baby in nonverbal. How she is sitting, her eye contact,
all of the other styles of communicating that you pick up.

Q: What are the most difficult conversations you have in your job?

Jo: One is where we have to give the
woman bad news about her unborn baby and counsel her on what her options are. I
try to keep it very, very clinical but it’s always emotional. You cannot be but
emotional but giving clear, concise direct information is important.

Aaron: How do you show empathy in those
situations?

Jo: More non-verbal, body language and silence.
Just giving them time to digest the information. Silence in those instances are
a big communicator.

Q: Who do you admire as an effective business communicator and
why?

Jo: Richard Branson because his whole
style of management is about empowering people rather than disempowering. He
has a great management style for his employees. He has an open-door policy. He
is open to all parts of his employees’ life because he understands that their
family life does impact on their ability to perform on their job. He has an
open style of communications with his staff which I think is great.

Aaron: What does empowering employees mean
to you?

Jo: I think the powerful quote Branson
says as a CEO is, “It’s not my job to look after the clients, my job is to look
after the staff to enable them to look after the client.” So he knows that top
level of management should not be concerned with customer service. They should
be concerned with employee relations because if you have happy staff, you will have
happy customers. It shows that the staff is respected and they are valued
members of his team and everybody likes to know that they are contributing.
It’s a basic human need to feel valued – that your contribution to this planet
is important and he communicates that to his staff really well. His staff
turnover rates are low; employee feedback is positive. Most people have a wish
for working at Virgin.

Q: What effective communication strategies have you used in
working with Māori individuals?

Jo: Using native language when you are
able to. Even if it’s not fluent and you are interspersing some Māori words it’s important because it
gives cultural identity to your communications. The feedback from clients is
that they really appreciate it because you made an effort to acknowledge who
they are.

Interviewing Ms. Toma reminded me each
profession communicates differently depending on the situation. But there are
common communications skills that transverse across occupations like active
listening, respect, non-verbal cues, telling stories to connect with others, and
confirming that the person you are speaking with understands you and you
understanding them.

Friday, February 10, 2017

I learned about Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR) while I
served in the U.S. Air Force in the early 1990s. My job in the military as a communications
and computers project manager was not particularly stressful but a few other
things were going on in my life at the time that I noticed that I was getting stressed about life. PMR helped me relax and take a timeout and let
things go.

PMR is an exercise that, if practiced regularly, can help individuals
achieve an overall sense of relaxation. This skill involves systematically
working through the major muscle groups in the body and recognizing what it
feels to have tension in each area and then letting that tension go.

Below are some instructions to help with your practice:

First get into a comfortable position – sitting or lying
down. You will progress your way through the muscle groups in your body –
tensing and then relaxing as you go. As you tense, take a deep breath and hold
the muscle tense for five to seven seconds. Focus on the muscle. As you breathe
out, say “relax” to yourself and let the tension go. Focus on the muscle as it
relaxes. Rest quietly for about 45 seconds, still concentrating on that muscle
before you shift on to the next muscle group.

Repeat in the following order:

ØStart with your right hand. Stretch your right
hand and fingers out as hard as you can.

ØTense your right biceps by pressing your right
elbow down or against its support.

ØStretch the toes of your right foot out and curl
them upward toward your head.

ØTense up the muscles in your left thigh.

ØPull the toes of our left foot in and curl your
foot inward.

ØStretch the toes of your left foot out and curl
them upward toward your head.

When you are finished, stay sitting or lying quietly for
another minute or two. Notice how you feel. Relax. Note the areas of your body
where tenseness persists. Breathe quietly and steadily.

One thing that may help you in this exercise is to make a
recording (very easy to do with cellular phones these days) progressing through
each stage and reminding yourself to breath. At first you may not like the
sound of your voice but I recorded me going through this exercise and it freed
my mind to just listen and focus on tensing my muscles and then relaxing.

I had to learn the hard way to
take timeout for myself. PMR helped me be deliberate and take timeout and use
this relaxation technique to let go! I hope it works for you. Let me know how
it goes:-)

A blog site that I follow and highly recommend is The Pinkcast. Daniel H. Pink is the
creator of this site. Pink is a best-selling author of five books, and is a
contributor to The New York Times, BusinessWeek, CNN, CNBC, ABC and
National Public Radio. He also lectures on economic transformation, motivation, behavioral psychology and the changing workplace for organizations around the
globe.

A few reasons why I enjoy his blogs so much are that his blogs are
videos, they get straight to the point (every video is under 3 minutes), his
information is actionable without a great deal of effort for me to take action and
his ideas can be implement immediately. The videos are also entertaining and at
times he has guests appear with him. Each video blog contains links and further
readings if you want to delve more into the topic discussed.

A great and easy idea from Pink to implement is the idea of a “premortem”.
Pink says the “premortem” is an idea from Gary Klein’s book, The Power of
Invitation, and Klein also describes how to conduct a “premortem” in this Harvard
Business review article Performing a
Project Premortem.

In his blog, Pinkcast
1.6, How to Anticipate and Prevent Big Mistakes, Pink says a “premortem”
is a process to do before you begin a big project. He defines a “premortem” as
taking the time to think about all the things that can go wrong before you
start a big or important project. This process allows you a chance to review
possible problems and pitfalls before the real project starts. Thus, “you make
mistakes in advance, in your head, rather than in real life with a real project”.
This makes sense to me and easy to do.

With a post-mortem a medical professional is looking back at what caused
the death of a person. With a “premortem” we are looking to avoid the ‘death’ or failure
of a project. We are thinking proactively to avoid possible disasters that can
we awaiting us.

Pink had a number of people who commented positivity about
Pinkcast 1.6. One post I find particular interesting was a reply from Ant and
this person posted the following:

I
train organisations to do this based on parallel thinking (e.g. Six thinking
Hats). It enables teams and individuals to look at all aspects of a problem,
idea or solution – i.e. Why are we doing this?, What will it look like?, How do
we feel about the idea/solutions?, and What can go wrong? And
then you can do the ‘post-mortem’ – what worked, what didn’t, what were the
results and what actions do we need to take for next time?

I replied to Ant and
said, "I Iike your idea about expanding the 'premortem' question of
"What can go wrong?" to include additional questions such as: Why are
we doing this?, What will It look like?, How do we feel about the idea/solution?,
Will this solve or improve the issue? and What happens if we do nothing?"

I have not heard a response back from Ant yet but I think they are on to something about asking additional questions besides, "How can this project possibly be a disaster?". Nevertheless, another informative and different perspective from The Pinkcast.

Instead we argue that the differences between expert
performers and normal adults reflect a life-long period of deliberate effort to
improve performance in a specific domain.

Below is what I added about deliberate practice, under the
Practice (Leaning Method) page:

In addition, Malcolm Gladwell’s point-of-view about deliberate
practice is different than Ericsson’s view.
Gladwell, staff writer at New York
Magazine and author of five books on The
New York Times Best Seller list including Outliers: The Story of Success
said in a May 2016 Freakonomics
podcast interview that, “He’s [Ericsson] a hard practice guy, and I’m a soft
practice guy.” Gladwell says that talent is important with intentional
dedication to practice and having a support system is vital to produce superior
outcomes. It not all about methodical effort as Ericsson claims.

I decided
to go back to the Wikipedia entry to see if it has been added to, deleted or
revised. To my surprise my entry is exactly how I wrote – no changes.

When I originally
added to the Wikipedia page I thought how easy it is for someone to modify an entry.
At that time, I didn’t know the public could so easily modify entries. Obviously
there are advantages and disadvantages to this feature to the Wikipedia
platform and business model but it has taught me that entries can easily be
manipulated to serve a commentators' point-of-view.My takeaway
from using Wikipedia as a reliable reference resource is to be careful.
Wikipedia is free and easy to access but beware that free – in this case – does
not necessarily mean accurate.

Thursday, February 9, 2017

In a previous
blog post, The Other "F" Word, I wrote that
failure isn’t permanent and that success is often the by-product of repeat
failures.

I’m not a
fan of the New England Patriots football team but if you didn’t know they just won
Super Bowl LI with a thrilling 34-28 overtime victory over the Atlanta Falcons. The Patriots have
appeared in the Super Bowl nine times in franchise history, the most of any
team, seven of them since the arrival of head coach Bill
Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady in 2000. But
Bill Belichick was not always a winning head coach in the National Football
League. In fact, he only had one heading coach in the NFL before coaching the
Patriots.

Belichick was the New York Giants’
defensive coordinator during the 1980s when the Giants won Super Bowls XXI and
XXV within a five-year span. Between the Giants and his current job in New
England, Belichick had a disastrous decade. After Super Bowl XXV, Belichick
took his first job as a head coach, with the Cleveland Browns in 1991. It
seemed like he was ready to be a successful head coach in the NFL.

Belichick made several unpopular
decisions in Cleveland that he thought would improve the team. Much of who Belichick
is today as head coach can be traced back to what he learned to do and what not
to do as head coach of the losing Browns. Under his tenure in Cleveland
the team had a losing record of 36 wins and 44 losses. Belichick
was fired by the Cleveland Browns in 1995.

"The Browns
were his training camp, his boot camp for success,'' said Mary Kay Cabot, the
beat reporter who covered Belichick and the Browns for the Cleveland Plain
Dealer. "There were mistakes he made here on players, personnel, staff,
public relations…He learned how to do it right by everything he did wrong here'',
said Cabot.

The difference
between long-term success and failure is our reaction to it. I believe
Belichick saw the upside of failure in Cleveland. According to Noa Kageyama,
Ph.D.,

“after a failure, we should focus on the specific
errors we made PLUS the specific things we did well. Focusing on both the good
and bad seems to result in the most learning and performance improvement. Presumably, if we focus only on our mistakes
after failures, we’ll get discouraged and spiral into that unproductive dark
place.”

Belichick is a
reminder to us not let set-backs paralyze and demoralize you. Failures truly
are “learning opportunities” to re-evaluate what you may be doing wrong but
also what you did well.